Get Clipboard Text In VB6

Have you ever got the error

‘Can’t open clipboard’

When you try to get the text from the clipboard, after simulating a “select all and copy” on a document (SendKeys “^A”, SendKeys “^C”) then you need to allow time for the text to be actually placed on the clipboard. The best way to do this is to use a loop and a sleep function

Public Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)

Private Function GetClipboardText() As String

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

Dim start As Date

start = Now

TryAgain:

DoEvents

Sleep 300

DoEvents

Dim text As String

text = Clipboard.GetText

GetClipboardText = text

Exit Function

ErrorHandler:

Dim errNum As Long

Dim errDescription As String

errNum = Err.Number

errDescription = Err.Description

If DateDiff("s", Now, start) > 5 Then

' Allow time for the clipboard data to be sent to the clipboard

' Otherwise you get the error 'Can't open clipboard

Err.Raise errNum, " GetClipboardText", errDescription

Else

Resume TryAgain

End If

End Function